Patten attacks Tory Euroscepticism

Former Tory chairman Chris Patten has accused his party's leadership of moving to the right and "flirting with UKIP".

Patten, seen as the standard bearer for pro-European Tories, has also dismissed Michael Howard's plans for withdrawal from EU social legislation and the common fisheries policy.

The Conservative leader has recently hardened his party's approach to Europe in the wake of electoral gains made by UKIP, not least in the Hartlepool by-election where they pushed the Tories into fourth place.

Patten, who stands down this month as a European commissioner, told the Independent: "If you decide to repatriate fish policy are you going to depend on our fish being taught to swim only in our territorial waters? Is this the real world?"

It is the first time that a pro-European Tory has publicly spoken out against the party's new direction for fear of reopening damaging splits over the subject.

Patten believes his party should take on UKIP, which he said represents "a particularly unattractive, blazered, xenophobia".

"They live in a fantasy world of conspiracies against gallant Blighty, white cliffs, Dambusters, Panzer helmets, a world in which every foreigner is a threat, a world which is totally at variance with the one in which we have to earn our living and keep the peace," he said.

But Patten also attacked Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and urged the government to make the case for the EU constitution.